Generally, water purifiers include various filters such as a precipitation filter, a carbon filter, a membrane filter, etc. connected and installed thereinside according to use thereof to allow water to go through a physical or chemical process to be purified while passing through filters.
Filters described above have a structure in which an inlet into which water is injected and an outlet through which water is discharged are formed in a filter head and coupled with connection pipes to be connected with many water purifying filters to purify and supply water supplied form a water source to a water tank of a water purifier.
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a conventional water purifier which includes a plurality of water purifying filters installed therein.
As shown in the drawing, in the conventional water purifier, filter cartridges such as a preprocessing precipitation filter 1, a pre carbon filter 2, a membrane filter 3, a post carbon filter 4, etc. are mounted to be used.
Here, the precipitation filter 1 provides a function of preliminarily filtering foreign substances such as sand, heavy metals, etc. included in water, the pre carbon filter 2 provides a function of adsorbing and removing a chlorine chemical, trihalomethane, organic chemicals, etc. which dissolve in the water, the membrane filter 3 is a core filter of the water purifier and provides a function of finally filtering foreign substances formed of heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, organic chemicals using a reverse osmosis concentration method using a high precision semipermeable membrane, and the post carbon filter 4 provides a function of filtering gas ingredients and odor ingredients which dissolve in the water.
Since the respective filters 1, 2, 3, and 4 which provide various functions described above have different exchange cycles while being used, it is generally necessary to separately replace a filter cartridge from a filter head.
However, when filter cartridges are separately replaced for each filter having a different exchange cycle, maintenance is difficult. When many filters are exchanged at the same time regardless of exchange cycles to solve this, maintenance costs are greatly increased.
In addition, since only one conventional filter cartridge can be mounted on a single filter head, there is a limitation in increasing a purified water amount. Also, since various components for being coupled with the filter head are necessary in addition to a filter body of the filter cartridge, resources are wastefully used.
Accordingly, a technology related to a practical and applicable filter cartridge capable of preventing an unnecessarily wasteful use of resources, reducing maintenance costs, being easily maintained and repaired, and increasing a purified water amount is acutely needed.